Cyclists take part in the RBC GranFondo Whistler road race last September. The average participant in the ride is male, 47, with a household income of more than $150, 000, a very similar demographic to avid golfers.Nick Procaylo
/ PNG

Matt Stansfield is a professional golfer who recently took up cycling.Jason Payne
/ PNG

Golf is waving goodbye to Jeff Hubman and Ted Ratcliffe as they rush to a new love whose arms stretch out like handlebars.

The two Vancouver residents are among those British Columbians who have gone from being hard-core golfers to passionate cyclists.

Hubman, 53, golfed like mad for almost two decades, playing every week, taking golf vacations to the Interior.

He discovered cycling a half-­dozen years ago. He now rides up to four times during the week, including an 80- to 100-km ride on weekends.

Hubman, who’s a sales account executive with a transportation firm when he isn’t riding, plans to ­tackle a 320-km route on the Vancouver-to-Seattle Ride to Conquer Cancer in June.

That doesn’t leave much time for greens and fairways.

“Golfing has really taken a beating,” Hubman says. “I bet I’ll golf, like, three or four times this year.”

Ratcliffe, a 45-year-old web developer, golfed intensely for six years in the early 1990s before the fun went out of the game for him.

He quit golf altogether, selling his clubs. He and his girlfriend have since gathered a fleet of 10 bikes between them.

“I cycle to work and back daily and for fun on weekends,” he says. “It’s like a new religion.”

It would be tempting to seize on Hubman and Ratcliffe as examples of an alleged migration from golf to cycling. For the past several years, casual observers have argued that “cycling is the new golf.”

Biking, according to this argument, is a haven for affluent, mainly ­middle-aged males seeking a harder workout on the road than they can get on the links. This migration — and the notion of a blood feud between sports — may be little more than social myth. There are, as yet, no studies linking cycling’s popularity to an influx of lapsed golfers — or injured runners, for that matter.

But there are early signs of a life cycle in which people’s emphasis shifts from one sport to another — and back again — as they age.

Kris Jonasson, executive director of industry association British Columbia Golf, sees this ­movement as a circle of athletics. Today’s cyclists, some of whom may have golfed more frequently, will likely return to golf as aging bodies seek a gentler form of exercise, he says.

Golf, in Jonasson’s vision, is the future toward which many aging cyclists are cruising.

“We truly are a sport for life. You can play golf if you’re 90 and we’re probably the only sport where you can do that,” Jonasson says.

“There is a natural progression for people who want to remain active and golf represents an ­opportunity for them.”

And you may want to consider buying some clubs if you want to live longer. Jonasson points to a 2008 Swedish study that found golfers live an average of five years longer than non-golfers with the same income.

But the two sports appear to appeal to the same core group of men affluent enough to afford $15,000 bikes or costly golf club memberships.

Neil McKinnon, CEO of RBC GranFondo Whistler, says the average participant in the annual 122-km Vancouver-to-Whistler bike ride is male, 47, with a household income above $150,000. Seventy-two per cent of GranFondo racers are men.

Those males enjoy the camaraderie of riding but many are driven, innately competitive personalities.

“The competitive elements of cycling are very attractive to the same demographic as golf,” McKinnon says. “But I think golf is more of a skilled pastime and may be more cerebral whereas cycling is more active.”

Golfers and cyclists also share a love of high-tech bling — and the financial resources to buy it, McKinnon says.

“You want to do better. Cyclists have a tendency to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade in a way that’s similar to golf.”

Gareth Jones, an exercise sciences professor at the University of B.C. Okanagan, says improvements in bike technology over the past decade such as lighter frames are powerful draws for cycling.

“Not only road bikes but mountain bikes are also even more popular among the middle to older age groups,” says Jones.

The time pressures that drive some people to quit or cut back on golf may also boost cycling’s appeal.

Kim McLeod, who chairs the schools of tourism management and outdoor recreation management at Capilano ­University, says lack of time is the biggest challenge to pursuing any athletic activity.

“There is definitely a shift in how people spend their leisure,” McLeod says. “A round of golf can be time-consuming whereas somebody can hop on a bike and go for a half-hour ride.”

Cycling has been said to be overtaking golf as a networking sport of choice among business people. McKinnon says major Vancouver companies, from brokerage houses to accounting firms to senior miners, have corporate teams in the GranFondo.

“When you get up early in the morning to ride, you start creating bonds,” McKinnon says. “Bonds are the essence of deal-making.”

Not so fast, says Jonasson.

Golf offers an opportunity for intimate conversation between shots, he says. It also gives people a chance to see how potential business partners deal with pressure and frustration, he adds.

“You have a chance to judge their character,” he says. “You have a chance to see how they handle a little bit of adversity if they don’t play well and how they work within a set of rules.”

B.C.’s current population of 450,000 golfers has been declining slightly, Jonasson says, but adds that there is no evidence that people are abandoning golf for biking.

Rather than making a clean jump from one sport to another, a rising number of people are athletic polygamists, he argues.

“I see lots of crossover,” Jonasson says. “Just about everyone I know that golfs owns a bicycle. I own a bicycle myself.”

They call cycling the new golf but an equally strong case can be made for calling cycling the new running, Dr. Jim Bovard says.

Bovard, a sports medicine specialist, says lots of aging runners who get injured or develop arthritis switch to cycling for an impact-free aerobic fix.

“It’s amazing how many people I’ve seen through the years who have just decided that cycling is a more enjoyable option,” says Bovard, who runs, cycles and golfs. “The GranFondo (bike race) is the new marathon.”

“For some it’s extremely difficult. Others make the transition more smoothly,” he says. “The norm is that people grieve and then accept the loss of their running, claw their way into cycling and find they really like it.”

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